The new variety named ‘DudeK’ is a limb mutation from a tree of the ‘Caudle’ apple variety (P#9068) on M-7 rootstock planted in my orchard at East Wenatchee, Wash. in 1994. I discovered ‘DudeK’ as a mutated limb, which was distinguished from other limbs on the tree by its more intensely colored fruit, in September 1998. Upon discovery I took buds of ‘Dudek’ and top-budded two additional trees on M-7 in the same orchard block. In December of 1999 I grafted buds from the second-generation branches of ‘DudeK’ onto fourteen five-year-old ‘Caudle’ trees that were growing on M-7. In August 2001 I budded thirteen M-7 rootstocks with ‘Dudek’ buds taken from third generation trees in my nursery, and I planted the resulting trees in my orchard in the spring of 2003. All of these trees have fruited, and they consistently carry the early and intense coloring characteristics of the mutation through three generations.